Homeless man's A/B test of generosity based on faith

Redditor Ventachinkway caught a photo of a homeless man conducting a clever exercise in behavioral economics disguised as an inquiry into the levels of spontaneous generosity as determined by religious creed or lack thereof.

I think it can be anti-semitic and at the same time intended to amuse rather than offend. I wouldn’t make such a joke myself and it seems pretty ballsy to me but in context here on BoingBoing it doesn’t offend me.

Also, in my experience Jews often find actual anti-semitism funny rather than offensive. I bought a Persian rug from an Iranian Jew who told me he was reading some David Duke stuff about how Jews run the world and said he wanted to print it out and bring it to the bank so he could apply for a loan and be like “Don’t you know who I am? You work for me!”

I’d also bet I’ve heard more anti-semitic jokes from Jews than from all other religions and ethnic groups combined.

Yes, it *was* a reference to the old ant-semitic stereotype, written in the full knowledge that boing-boing readers are unlikely to be anti-semites and will see this as less “perpetuating”, and more of a reference, as in “such stereotypes exists, lol”.

I’m in the camp that’s only afraid of stereotypes that are likely to have a negative influence on their audience. You lot are grown-up enough to deal with a joke about jews, without organizing a new holocaust.

Religions motivate their adherents through a combination of reward and punishment (often implied more than actualized). Even if you’re a really good person who wants to just do the right thing for the right reasons, there’s a part of every Christian who’s also doing it to get to heaven. There’s a part of every Christian who’s afraid of hell. Even the best Christian who is sincerely a nice person has got a little bit of that self-serving “I want to go to heaven” in him.

Atheists are the only people who you know do what they do solely because it’s what they want to do. Atheists are the only people who never think twice about their eternal reward before deciding to the right thing anyway. Atheists are the only ones have no self-serving reason to not go on a killing spree. Well okay, there are plenty of good self-serving reasons here on Earth to prevent someone from doing that. But the point remains, Atheists aren’t worried about how some omniscient grandfather in the sky is going to judge them later on. If they’re good people, it’s because they want to be, not because someone forces them to be.

No matter how good a Christian somebody is, there’s still that self-serving element of doing the right thing to go to heaven and not just doing the right thing because it’s right. It’s always in the back of their minds somewhere, “God is watching.” An essential element of Christian philosophy is this appeal to a person’s self-interest. “You don’t want to do the right thing because it’s hard? You’ll go to hell if you’re not careful.” Are they really good people when they only do the right thing because they think they have to? Is their motivation pure if there’s even a hint of self-interest in there somewhere? (And yes, asking about pure motivations is meaningful in this context because Christians believe in that sort of thing even if I don’t.) If their motivations are ultimately selfish, how easy is it for them to rationalize some form of selfishness into their faith if that’s what they really want? (Think John Calvin and his nonsense about righteous earthly rewards which makes absolutely no sense in any charitable interpretation of scripture)

The only thing surprising about the amount of money in his “atheist” dish is how many atheists must be walking by that particular stretch of sidewalk.

“there’s a part of every Christian who’s also doing it to get to heaven. There’s a part of every Christian who’s afraid of hell”

Apart from the many Christians who don’t believe in Hell (and the minority of Christians who don’t even believe in Heaven), and for whom the idea of eternal punishment/reward has absolutely zero relation to their day-to-day ethical choices.

Even atheists are subject to the reward centers of their brains. They’re still human, and not a superior kind of human for their absence of organized religion. They aren’t immune to the predisposition to see patterns, and assign meaning, including patterns they don’t understand. Atheists too are superstitious. Let’s not pretend here that a Christian tossing a coin into a bowl to support his team, is superior to the atheist who also threw a coin in, but for less socially validated and identifiable reasons. To do so is to engage in the ‘us vs. them’ mentality of all groups (religious or other) who seek to carve out a superior spot for themselves on this Mortal Coil.

Wait… you may have a bit of a point there. Narcissism and self-interest are the new religion.

The nicest, sweetest, most genuine and generous person I know is a lapsed adventist. Hardly an atheist, but hardly devout. I think the things that cause people to do good things are all very complicated, but in the end [lack of] faith isn’t destiny.

I don’t believe in God and don’t consider myself better than those who do… most days. I objected to his tone.

Agree with your definition of altruism. As far as I know complete selflessness does not exist, although the idea that it did was a cherished belief about the human race up until college, then wham-o! Oh, those liberal arts profs.

At some time I’d like to see the BB community mull over who shall inherit the earth culture-wise. I tend to think it will be those who persist in holding their family and community as their highest values, apart from their ideas about a higher power. But that ‘s another conversation for another day.

You mean like the blind adherence to the market, violent racism, institutionalized racism leading to inhuman experiments on people, and the enthusiastic cheer-leading of violent imperialism in the name of a war on a concept that in the end provides you no security and less rights?

I’ll admit it’s potentially skewed by the fact that Christians would largely be passing by at 35 mph in their SUVs with the windows rolled up and the doors locked, and therefore be unable to read the categories.

Wouldn’t you also have to have an equal sampling of all, in order to get accurate data; or do you extrude percentages based on total numbers? I’d really like to see his central thesis and data extrapolation at some point…

What’s amusing me isn’t the “I’LL SHOW THEM!” sentiment but the fact that so many atheists are skeptical of the motives of other atheists. I’m not so sure the point of the exercise was to make atheists skeptical of the motives of other atheists.

I suspect many folks of many denominations, especially Christians and Atheists of certain stripes, would definitely get that “I’ll show him!” mentality and donate more than they otherwise would. While this isn’t a super scientific study, it is an undeniably ingenious strategy to make your panhandling more profitable.

While clever, there’s an error in his experiment. I, for one, care about the homeless, but refuse to give individually; choosing only to give to establishments (I go with a local shelter/community outreach group). Where do I fit in? Can I show him a receipt from last years taxes instead?

We may not have a church to give money to, but we can give directly to the shelters, job training organizations, soup kitchens, etc. Not having a middleman doesn’t mean you don’t have avenues for giving.

Can only speak for myself, but in my town many and some of the biggest homeless/poverty organizations are not religious ones. One of them (the food bank) is a favorite charity for the presumably not very religious arts community, lots of benefit concerts etc.

As an innovation in panhandling, it’s brilliant. But it’s not an A/B test. At best, it’s a poll of how many people are willing self-identify as belonging to each category *and* do so by giving money. It tells you nothing about relative generosity. It might hint at the relative number of each group who pass that spot on a given day, but even then there are too many confounding variables for such any conclusion to be drawn.

Are you people trying to tell me that this homeless dude’s off-hand clever way of pandhandling is NOT a scientifically legitimate, properly controlled, well vetted, statistically accurate scientific experiment!?!?! Oh man, that was a CLOSE one. Thank you BoingBoing commentors for your diligence, once again protecting us all from a horrible mistake! Who knows what havoc would have been unleashed upon the world had you not all stepped in an explained that.

Yes, because BoingBoing headlines and captions are always meant to be taken literally, without the slightest sense of humor, exaggeration, or sarcasm.

Or maybe, just maybe, they expect their readers to recognize hyperbole when they see it and don’t feel the need to explain their jokes and explain the blindingly obvious fact that a dude begging is not actually a scientific experiment.

Behavioral economics is an exploitative field that deals with using an often irrational emotional response to stimuli to one’s advantage in the achievement of a given end.

I don’t see how this convinced anyone of anything. You are inherently already convinced (or not) — this just simply brings it to the surface and exploits it (or doesn’t).

It’s as much as of a scam as the crooked carny from a few articles back.

You see, that’s the trouble with sarcasm and hyperbole — it’s tough to identify when mixed in with ostensibly serious topics. With sources like The Onion, there is no question. Here, it’s not so obvious.

At this point, who really gives a shit. You’re smarter than I. Good for you.

Test assumes that people actually carry cash. I know I do not. Ever. A cashless flock of Muslims on their way to the Mosque could have passed by and not been represented in this test. Factor in that being Muslim in this country is an occupational hazard… I can completely understand why one might not want to identify as such to a vagrant with a shaved head and a ominous looking goatee.

This also fails in so many other ways. Hardly clever, or even remarkable.

But it is quite an innovative method of panhandling, as was pointed out.

In my experience, atheists tend to try harder to surpass the Christians than the other way around. Christians generally don’t have anything to prove, or anything to gain by proving it, and no heretic is likely to make them question their pride…

I’d say this is a money making scheme discuised a clever exercise in behavioral economics disguised as an inquiry into the levels of spontaneous generosity as determined by religious creed or lack thereof. And it looks like it’s working!

I think it’s because the number one recipient of charitable donations from Christians is churches. That’s where the vast majority of their philanthropy goes. Some of that goes into service programs sponsored by individual churches or denominations, of course, but as a result less goes into stand-alone programs. Meanwhile, atheists don’t have to deal with building funds appeals or ministers’ salaries to pay….donations go to specific individuals and organizations directly.

A clever street side gimmick, but obviously we all know that measuring this way doesn’t really determine anything. Some folks care a great deal about the homeless and are, for example, involved in major organizations or political movements that are pushing for change in a big way that dropping a couple dollars in a bowl on the street isn’t going to be able to stand up to.

Yes! I was also thinking he was moving around the money to achieve the desired effect.

If I were him I’d purposefully keep the Christian and Jewish bowls near empty and also “proudly announce ‘the atheists are winning!'”

Also, this “homeless” guy seems to not be homeless. He has been eating a subway sandwich that he got with an iced tea. The two bags of his which I can see are a nice, reusable cooler-bag and a bag filled with a half-dozen other clever HOMEmade signs. His white t-shirt seems both clean and in good condition, possibly hip. His hair and beard are recently groomed; his jeans and shoes are worn, but still respectable. <– Or maybe my vision is skewed by living in Portland.

My wife went to a conference in Portland a while back and reported that Portland, while nice, has either a tremendous homeless problem, or that a seemingly large percentage of the population could use a good bath and some laundry detergent.

Also, this “homeless” guy seems to not be homeless. He has been eating a subway sandwich that he got with an iced tea.

People frequently buy homeless folks food and beverages rather than directly giving them money. It’s just as likely that he’s sitting near a subway and someone was feeling generous. Also, what do you expect homeless folks to eat? It’s not like they can heat something up on their stoves.

The two bags of his which I can see are a nice, reusable cooler-bag and a bag filled with a
half-dozen other clever HOMEmade signs.

Most homeless people have started out with a home and a bunch of stuff. When they become homeless they take some of their more useful stuff with them. They often have relatively nice bags and coats because those things are survival equipment for homeless people. The reusable cooler bag would be especially valuable to a homeless person in TX given the heat and the frequency with which people give homeless folks perishable food items.

His white t-shirt seems both
clean and in good condition, possibly hip.

Many homeless people prefer to be relatively clean however difficult it is to remain that way when they’re homeless. They often use laundromats. Besides staying clean this is also useful for staying warm in the winter.

His hair and beard are recently groomed; his jeans and shoes are worn, but still respectable.

Many homeless people prefer to do what they can to remain relatively groomed for any number of reasons, not least that panhandling is easier when you don’t have a big bushy beard with birds nesting in it. Also, they’re already treated as creepy and weird by a lot of people so they often do what they can to minimize that including putting a little bit of effort into hygiene and grooming.

You’re making a lot of unwarranted and kind of shitty assumptions about homeless folks.

Or I was pointing out that Portland has a higher than average population of homed people who walk around in an unclean and disheveled state; a condition that appears far closer to the stereotypical appearance of homelessness than this guy (a gentleman whose racket closer resembles the carnies and their rigged games which we were discussing yesterday).

Boy, am I glad I didn’t use an imperial measurement in my comment! I can’t imagine the earful I would have gotten for doing that…

I don’t consider US vs. imperial to be a moral issue. I do consider stereotypes about the homeless to be a moral issue. I guess you consider them to be morally equivalent?

Many of your “observations” such as the subway sandwich don’t seem to have anything in particular to do with Portland or being disheveled. Thus I was under the impression you were sincerely arguing that this guy is not homeless and then tacked on a Portland joke at the end of it.

I’m arguing that he is running a con for money; as a result, I find suspicious information within each aspect of the photo.

What is the term you would be comfortable using to describe a sterotypical homless person? A person with a huge beard, wearing rags, stinking of piss and shit, open sores, carrying a collection of garbage, and drunk/hungover as fuck.

@wysinwyg:disqus – I hear the catholic church has some opportunities for advancement, since it’s preaching you’re into. However, when you apply, they may ask for more than a 2-word “HUMAN BEING” resume. Also, you could stand to lighten up.

Thank you. You responded exactly as I would have wanted to respond to Ian.

Making assumptions to convince yourself that a person can’t possibly be a “real” homeless person, or a “real” poor person, or a person with “real” difficulties, is just a way to justify the fact that you’d prefer to believe they don’t exist.

The homeless exist, in droves, just like humorless moralizing online commentators.

In my experience, many homeless were abused (often sexually) and/or neglected as children which has resulted in severe substance abuse. Others are suffering from the abuse of corporate machinations that fucked over the 99%. These generally seem to be two different classes of people, ones with a reasonable amount of hope for change and others whose will was crushed long ago. Helping either group is honourable, but there really does seem to be a distinct difference and I imagine the help they need is equally different.

I never “made fun” of him, except, I guess, to call his t-shirt possibly”hip.” I do accuse him of rigging his rigorously scientific religion-baiting poll.

Gee, I’m glad we’ve all made a difference in the world today, spending our time making a difference in real people’s lives and not just making jokes about hipsters in the northwest.

A) Your suspicions are wrong B) I find the incidence of self-proclaimed sexual abuse in the homeless to be staggering. To the point where I personally cannot deny some correlation. C) Arguing with this idiot is clearly something you’re spending time on, congrats, on both that and your stark inability to take a joke about the Portland fauxmless.

No, you likened him to a Carny defrauding people with a rigged game. That is exactly what you said. That’s not ‘making fun of’, it’s insulting someone based on your snap judgement about their appearance.

There are many ways to help the down and out, homed or not, but giving them trivial amounts of money isn’t one of them.

In fact, giving pocket change or even a $5 to random beggars worsens the situation for all parties. Social welfare programs are generally great; thinking that giving trivial amounts of linty money to beggars is not so awesome.

If you want to give directly to a homeless person (i.e. not the best way to help), my suggestions, after a frigging house, are:
1) Food
2) Blankets
3) Earbuds (seriously, this is a frequent request)
4) Batteries

Having been homeless, and had to beg for money, I put it to you that any amount someone gives you is not ‘trivial’. The earbuds thing is probably for filtering drugs as you pull them into a syringe, BTW.

My accusation, the carny comparison, was a pretty lighthearted point that he was rigging the amount of money in each cup to optimize profit. Would you disagree? In fact, he is a goddamned idiot if he’s taking this approach for the money and not playing into people’s psychology.

So, with your experience, you think that giving out trivial (for the giver) amounts of money is the way that people should address the problem? It seems to me like that just helps make people feel better about themselves without actually helping shit. Begged money, doesn’t seem like a solution to the problem. I doubt you’re online today as an end result of the random handouts from unorganized strangers.

And I figured the earbuds were for listening to some of the battery operated devices, in part because earbuds fall apart and degrade so quickly even when homed.

Of course, I don’t have anything against drugs, in general, but I’m also not clear on how headphones can be altered to help filter a liquid drug. You mean the sheer metal piece off of the old style of Apple earbuds? Like buying sink faucet aerator screens for smoking weed? That seems a little roundabout…

Ian, I don’t really think there’s anything “lighthearted” about questioning a person’s homelessness because they have food, a clean shirt, and have shaven within the last few days. These stereotypes are what I was objecting to in the first place (you seem unable to acknowledge this). They’re worth arguing against from my point of view. I’m sorry that you have such a problem with being called out on that but hey, you’re the one who made those claims. You could have even made your stupid Portland joke without doing so. There’s really no need to get so defensive about it — you could just say “You know, you’re right — those aren’t very good indicators of whether or not someone is homeless. My bad.” And it would have ended there.

FWIW you’re right about the ear buds. Not necessarily so right about the small amounts of money. Although a lot (maybe most — maybe almost all) of homeless folks use a lot of that money for booze and cigarettes they also use it for laundry, food, clothing, and various other gear — toothbrushes and toothpaste are pretty important but they didn’t make your list (which is maybe an indication that you shouldn’t presume to know what it is that homeless folks most need). Small money won’t get them off the street but a job might…if they can get clothes for an interview and clean themselves up for that interview.

Prejudice is not subjecting people outside of your group to negative actions, it is the failure to extend the privileges granted to one’s own tribe to non-members. Atheists are less likely to see themselves as belonging to a separate group, and are therefore less likely to treat people as outsiders.

He needs to account for sampling bias! Those pagan dollars dollars are probably > 10x as meaningful! I’ve had it with these biased surveys with inaccurate demographic weighting – I bet his raking marginals aren’t even up-to-date with the latest census data!

I see a similar concept around here from time to time with counter-top tip jars. They label one side one thing and another an opposing thing( or put out two jars side by side) and people put in money to cast their vote and the staff keeps the money and posts the results. It’s not usually something that’s such a heavy issue like religion or politics,though. It’s a more pop culture feud kind of thing. It’s kind of fun, tends to spark some conversation amongst the patrons, and helps the tip jars fill up no matter who’s winning.

I’d not presume a beggar was being honest about anything in the display or spiel. The “Atheists are winning” would likely be to motivate the “religious” (generally the far larger and more touchy about this audience) into parting with more coin lest they be seen to be falling behind the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned atheists.

There’s an art and science to begging going all the way back to Babylonia if not further. Check Heinlein’s “Citizen of the Galaxy” or Doyle’s “The Man With the Twisted Lip” for good background on successful begging methods.

I got Gallup Polled a couple of days ago and said my religion was “none” rather than “other.” I am not an atheist. I wouldn’t even say I’m “nonreligious” so much as “no particular religion” though that’s splitting hairs.

Among these bowls I’d probably identify as pagan.

Also I tend to do my charitable giving to organizations (Heifer International, Water.org, etc.) rather than random people on the street, as a matter of course.

Then why do Christians of different denominations argue about it all the time? That’s pretty much the definition of “contentious.”

It isn’t really a contentious issue, nowhere in the Bible does is say
that good works earn you any favor with God, it says the opposite in
many places quite explicitly.

You’ve made your interpretation of the Bible pretty clear. However, many Christians disagree with that interpretation. Since I’m not a Christian it’s probably a waste of your time to argue this point with me. You should argue with the Christians who disagree with you.

You’re comfortable speaking for ~2 billion people, despite having never known even a tiny fraction of 1% of them, and despite the reams of information right before you—historical & contemporary—which contravenes your opinion?

I find it irritating when people assume truths about history and about complete strangers’ beliefs and motivations in the pursuit of shoring up trite generalities. But that’s faith for you, I guess.

1) I doubt the Atheists winning is a scam to guilt others. Likely it is the other way around in that Atheists likely more than the rest feel like they have something to prove. I would put myself in that category, and I think I would feel compelled to donate more just to make a point.

2) Additionally, many people that belong to organized religion donate to charity through their church and may feel less obligated to make individual donations, on the idea that they have already given money that will be used by the church to help people in the local community.

3) Then again if “Cthulhu” was an option I might feel compelled to vote for that, simply to try to promote the fact that I think all religion is pretty ridiculous.

I’m thinkin of following this dude and buying some bowls at family dollar, maybe keeping track of the stats, because I love stats (multiple 4 and 5 level stats classes) and donating the money to this great soup kitchen on Allen. I’d love to spend some Saturdays doing this in the Elmwood village (in front of my friend’s bike store) although I’d rather be sailing. – STUDENT OF COMPARATIVE RELIGIONS

While it’s a clever and interesting test, there is no scientific basis in this test for proving generosity based on religion (or lack thereof) unless it was a controlled test of sorts and for a longer duration; because of the random factor of an uncontrolled test and random acts in humans in general as well as the specific location this homeless man was sitting. This could just mean that there happened to be a greater majority of atheists out and about during this time of day, at this specific location, that had spare change in their pocket.